‘Since I wrote, something very sad has happened. Poor Mr. Bolton is dead. He died last week, very suddenly, of heart disease. You may imagine that it has been a fearful blow to poor Nita, unhappy as she is already. Even Jerome felt it, I think, or believed he did. Mr. Bolton has always been so good to him, and I defy anyone not to have respected him. It made me very sad, too. I had got so fond of him. Some of my happiest hours were spent with him at Monk’s Gate, helping him with his Italian. He did so want to finish his translation of the “Inferno,” and have it published. Nita liked me to go there. Jerome always wanted her to stay in in the evening, and I think she did not want her father to see how sad she looked sometimes. She is goodness itself, but oh! so altered, so subdued, and so sad! I am sure she knows by some means–though how, I can’t imagine–how dreadfully Jerome had deceived her all the time she thought he loved her. At least, I know that now she knows he does not love her as she loves him, and as he _ought_ to love her. I know I am a fool sometimes. I say such fearfully indiscreet things every now and then. The other day, when Nita told me that she hoped she would have her baby before next winter, I exclaimed, “Oh, Nita, how glad I am! That will make it all right.” She looked at me so strangely for a few minutes, and then burst into tears, and said, “Who knows? who knows? It is as God shall dispose it.” I am glad she can think so. To me it seems very strangely disposed, but then, as you know, I never could say, “Thank God!” for the things that make everyone unhappy all round, and I don’t believe they are providential at all. I believe they happen because people are wicked and selfish. But Nita is very good, though she never talks about it. I know she thinks people don’t have troubles without deserving them, and she is under the impression that she must in some way deserve her troubles, though even she cannot say how. ‘But I was telling you about Mr. Bolton’s death. Everything seems very strange without him. Do you know, only the day before he died he gave me a lovely pearl ring, which he said was to be in remembrance of _my kindness to him_! How I did cry when I thought of it. And poor Mr. Leyburn, who, I am sure, never _will_ learn when to speak, and when to be silent, said that I ought to be glad, and not sorry, to know that I had been of any comfort to him. Now, _did_ he expect me to burst into a fit of delighted laughter? But of course he means well. ‘Mr. Bolton’s death has made Nita, and I suppose Jerome too, _very_ rich, of course; though I don’t understand anything about the circumstances of it.